I had wanted to come on here today and say why I loved/hated last night's X-Files so much. Wish I could.

Oh, I saw it all right. Lisa and I stayed up extra late folding laundry just so we could watch the season premiere. Normally, we would have let the stuff wrinkle until tomorrow, but as the show was on anyway...

Problem is that I am not altogether certain I liked it. Or disliked it, for that matter.

Here's the problem Mr. Carter faces this season: How do I retain a level of secrecy and paranoia in a show where all the secrets have been revealed, everyone knows who the bad guys are, and my main actor who was looking for the truth is only in the season for half the shows.

don't trust him scully! doesn't matter if he's cute! he works for THE MAN!

His answer: Robert Patrick.

Mr. Patrick (Yeah, the guy who played the shiny Terminator in T2) plays John Doggett, a FBI agent who has more in common with Tommy Lee Jones' character in 'U.S. Marshals' than Fox Mulder. He's the lucky sod put in charge of the manhunt to locate the missing Mulder, and doesn't believe any of this alien abduction crap.

So, we've got Scully moved to the position of the believer, with Doggett as the skeptic. Plus there's all sorts of weird crap going on that hints at Mulder looting FBI files and buying gravestones, so there's some mystery. Skinner's gone all alien-happy since his little incident in last season, and is acting like the fourth Lone Gunman.

So I don't know. There was some neat chemistry going on, Patrick had some really good scenes as the distrusted-yet-honorable-cop-doing-his-job. Scully kept having weird dreams about Mulder getting his face stretched out on hooks and drills getting driven through the roof of his mouth, so that was cool.

But the X-Files IS Mulder and Scully. Frankly, I don't know what else there can be.

We'll see. We'll see.

I don't know...

Yesterday, you were all mushy and stuff

So did she get the job or what?

Take me home, big fella